Corrections Corner / Tom Elliott

Inmate’s immersion into Christmas play is a lesson in rebirth

Christmas in prison can often be tough on an inmate, as I know firsthand.

Like most people in prison at this time of the year, my thoughts would naturally turn to family, friends and joyous times.

Separation from family and friends, however, made Christmas time an emotional rollercoaster. I would try to reminisce about the friends and family with whom I had created lifelong memories—some of whom had passed from this world. This would start the grieving process all over again, recalling the good times, lamenting the new times I was missing out on, and regretting the criminal act for which I was serving my debt to society.

As a repeat offender, I had lost most of my family and friends. The sadness and loneliness could at times become paralyzing. Hate, anger, dislike for myself, the situation I created for my family and the wrong I committed against the community would become overwhelming. I grew tired of being stuck in the past. Christmas is supposed to be a time of rebirth. Why could it not be for me also?

Thanks to a “relentless hound”—Benedictine Father Jeremy King—to whom I will be eternally grateful, I experienced rebirth within the Church through baptism. After baptism, the single factor that had the biggest impact on my Christian growth was a Christmas play directed by some wonderful volunteers that I became involved with during my last two years in prison. Very quickly this play became for me “the greatest story ever told.”

I stopped grieving and started changing my life into something better. Those last two Christmases became the best I had ever experienced. I opened myself up to others. I found great support in this new community, which in turn inspired in me an unshakable belief in the possibility of my own success. I stopped being angry at myself and the world. I began to feel the joy of Christmas: Love.

Now outside, this is my third Christmas enjoying a changed heart, under the watchful support of my Church and newfound community. I can only thank our merciful God and the wonderful people who have been so instrumental in my own rebirth, made possible for me once I completely immersed myself in “the Christmas Story.”
 

(Tom Elliott is a member of Annunciation Parish in Brazil.) †